NASA's Heliophysics Gallery

On Sept. 9, 2021, a sounding rocket launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, carrying a copy of the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment, or EVE. This flight was used to calibrate the identical version of EVE that has flown in space since 2010 aboard NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Over the years, the space-based EVE has become degraded by intense sunlight, so scientists fly periodic calibration missions to keep EVE’s measurements sharp.

Here we compare the enhanced ionospheric emission by atomic oxygen (OI at 135.6nm) observed by the GOLD instrument (right panel) with measured total electron content (TEC, Wikipedia) measured through the NAVSTAR GPS system (left panel). The oxygen emission and TEC are both enhanced in two bands known as the Equatorial Ionization Anomaly (EIA) or Appleton anomaly, that straddle Earth's geomagnetic equator. The Appleton anomaly is formed by a process known as the Equatorial Fountain. This visualization illustrates the motion of these bands on a global scale over a time scale of a few hours, a capability not available until the GOLD mission.

NASA Science missions circle the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, Mars, and many other destinations within our Solar System, including spacecraft that look out even further into our universe. The Science Fleet depicts the scope of NASA’s activity and how our missions have permeated throughout the solar system.

Multiple infographics illustrating the science and impact of space weather.

Locator graphic for plasma waves in the magnetosphere

The space environment is harsh not only on humans and other living organisms, but instruments also. Damage from solar energetic particles and cosmic rays can slowly degrade performance of an instrument. Fortunately there are ways to characterize and correct for this degradation. The graphics on this page are based on the tutorial AIApy: Modeling Channel Degradation over Time.

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After almost a year of operations, there is already a suggestion of a change in instrument response. Here we have AIA 304 data with the color table applied to the raw data (above) and the recalibrated data (below).

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Three years later, there is a much more noticeable difference in the calibrated vs. uncalibrated imagery. Another seven years and the difference is really difficult to miss.

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NASA’s EPIC, Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), sits aboard NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory Satellite (DSCOVR). EPIC provides high quality, color images of Earth, which are useful for monitoring factors like the planet’s vegetation, cloud height, and ozone. And every once in a while –– most recently, June 10, 2021 –– it has the opportunity to capture a solar eclipse. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon is positioned between the Sun and Earth, leading the Moon’s shadow to be projected onto Earth. During a total solar eclipse, the Moon completely blocks the Sun. During an annular solar eclipse, like the one on June 10, the Moon is near its farthest point from Earth and appears smaller than the Sun in the sky. As the two align, the Sun appears as a ring of fire surrounding the dark disk of the Moon. On June 10, viewers in parts of Canada, Greenland, and Russia were treated to a full annular eclipse. People in a handful of other locations, including parts of the Caribbean, Asia, Europe, eastern United States, Alaska, and northern Africa, were able to catch a partial solar eclipse, where only part of the Sun is blocked by the Moon, leaving behind a crescent-shaped piece of Sun. EPIC didn’t have too bad a view, either. You can find more photos and videos from EPIC, including a few lunar photobombs, here.

On June 25, 2021, NASA Administrator Sen. Bill Nelson visited the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. This is a compilation of edited B-roll from the employee social, Goddard Hyperwall Theater, and the Integration & Testing facilities tour.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, spacecraft was launched on Feb. 11, 2010, and began collecting science data a few months later. With two imaging instruments – the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly and the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager, which were designed in concert to provide complementary views of the Sun – SDO sees the Sun in more than 10 distinct wavelengths of light, showing solar material at different temperatures. SDO also measures the Sun’s magnetic field and the motion of solar material at its surface, and, using a technique called helioseismology, allows scientists to probe deep into the Sun's interior, where the Sun’s complex magnetic fields sprout from. And with more than a decade of observation under its belt, SDO has provided scientists with hundreds of millions of images of our star.

A large filament of plasma erupted from the Sun in late August 2012. It was a structure that had 'hovered' over the solar surface for some time before finally being launched. Here are two views of the event - a fast version, illustrating more of the before and after configuration, sampled every 15 minutes; and a slow version, focused around the details of the actual eruption.

A leisurely view in the SDO Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) of a very large sunspot group transiting the solar disk in October of 2014. This spot was the visible light component of the active region cataloged as NOAA 12192.

The U.S. Postal Service illuminates the light and warmth of our nearest star by highlighting these stunning images of the Sun on stamps. These images come from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, a spacecraft launched in February 2010 to keep a constant watch on the Sun. The Sun is the only star that humans are able to observe in great detail, making it a vital source of information about the universe. The Solar Dynamics Observatory lets us see the Sun in wavelengths of ultraviolet light that would otherwise be invisible to our eyes. Each black-and-white image is colorized to the bright hues seen here. The stamps highlight different features on the Sun that help scientists learn about how our star works and how its constantly churning magnetic fields create the solar activity we see. Sunspots, coronal holes and coronal loops, for example, can reveal how those magnetic fields dance through the Sun and its atmosphere. Observing plasma blasts and solar flares can help us better understand and mitigate the impact of such eruptions on technology in space. The Sun Science stamps are being issued as Forever stamps, which will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail 1-ounce price.

Formally the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP)

While the sun is well known as the overwhelming source of visible light in our solar system, a substantial part of its influence is driven by some aspects less visible to human perception - the magnetic field.

Solar Cycle 25 has begun. The Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel announced solar minimum occurred in December 2019, marking the transition into a new solar cycle. In a press event, experts from the panel, NASA, and NOAA discussed the analysis and Solar Cycle 25 prediction, and how the rise to the next solar maximum and subsequent upswing in space weather will impact our lives and technology on Earth.

The Earth's magnetic shield

The near-Earth space enviroment is a complex interaction between Earth's magnetic field, cool plasma moving up from Earth's ionosphere, and hotter plasma coming in from the solar wind. This interactions combine to maintain the radiation belts around Earth.

Earth isn't the only solar system body with an internally generated magnetic field. Here are some visualizations of simplified versions of magnetospheres of the giant outer planets.

For over 40 years, NASA's Sounding Rocket Program has provided critical scientific, technical, and educational contributions to the nation's space program and is one of the most robust, versatile, and cost-effective flight programs at NASA.

On Monday, May 9, 2016, Mercury will transit across the sun. This rare event will begin at 7:11 AM EDT and will continue for more than seven hours. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory will watch this transit from start to finish, ultra high definition images of the event in near real time as it unfolds. This is the first time SDO has captured this transit, which hasn't occurred since 2006. It won't occur again until 2019. NASA Scientists use the transit method to learn more about planets both in our solar system and beyond. Scientists can monitor the brightness of stars, looking for dips in that brightness that signal a transiting planet. Using the transit method, scientists can determine the distance of these planets from their stars, as well as their size and composition. Upcoming missions like the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite will use the transit method to search for planets orbiting nearby stars.

This gallery contains visuals in support of the June 5, 2012 transit of Venus across the solar disk.

Orbits and trajectories of many missions observing the Sun and the near-Earth environment.

The sun is always changing and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is always watching. Launched on Feb. 11, 2010, SDO keeps a 24-hour eye on the entire disk of the sun, with a prime view of the graceful dance of solar material coursing through the sun's atmosphere, the corona.

SDO, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, images the entire sun at 4096x4096 resolution in multiple wavelengths every 12 seconds. The selection below represents some of the best options for full-disk slow rotation. The 4k content is available for download as frame sequences, and, in some cases, as ProRes video. These files are large and will take a long time to download.

Solar flares! CMEs! The Really Big Images from Solar Dynamics Observatory! Get them here!